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Author: luke

Azure update management schedules using PowerShell

Published by luke on 25th October 2020

Using Azure update management (AUM) you can schedule the updates for your Azure VMs and report on compliance. AUM is an Azure automation account feature. Obviously you can manually create each schedule but that is time consuming and…well manual. This is where PowerShell comes in. If you don’t have the PowerShell Az module already installed then you can follow this Microsoft document: Install Azure PowerShell The first job is to connect or login to your…

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Azure delete VM and child resources using PowerShell

Published by luke on 24th October 2020

In Azure delete VM is an easy task. Just go to the VM and click “Delete” on the menu. The issue is that only deletes the Virtual Machine resource, it does not delete the dependant child resources such as disk and network interface. Obviously you can manually delete each child resource but that is time consuming and…well manual. This is where PowerShell comes in. If you don’t have the PowerShell Az module already installed then…

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Azure resource tagging using PowerShell

Published by luke on 16th September 2020

Azure resource tagging is a great way to label or group your Azure resources based on custom names and values. For example you could have a tag named “owner” for specifying the resource owner or “patchphase” for noting what phase to patch the OS or application running on a virtual machine. The issue with Azure resource tagging is the management of the tags when you have more than a handful of resources, so pretty much…

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Install vRealize Automation (vRA) using vRealize Lifecycle Manager (vRLCM)

Published by luke on 16th July 2020
This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Install vRealize Automation 8 using vRLCM

This blog post is part of the Install vRealize Automation 8 using vRLCM series and focuses on the install of vRealize Automation (vRA). vRA8 simplifies the application stack versus vRA7 by doing away with the Windows IaaS components in place of a self contained appliance. While this is true it does add it’s own complexity. vIDM (VMware Identity Manager) is embedded in vRA 7 appliance, which when vRA is clustered automatically clusters vIDM. In vRA8…

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Install VMware Identity Manager (vIDM) using vRealize Lifecycle Manager (vRLCM)

Published by luke on 16th July 2020
This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Install vRealize Automation 8 using vRLCM

This blog post is part of the Install vRealize Automation 8 using vRLCM series and focuses on the install of VMware Identity Manager (vIDM). vRA8 simplifies the application stack versus vRA7 by doing away with the Windows IaaS components in place of a self contained appliance. While this is true it does add it’s own complexity. vIDM (VMware Identity Manager) is embedded in vRA 7 appliance, which when vRA is clustered automatically clusters vIDM. In…

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Configure vRealize Lifecycle Manager (vRLCM)

Published by luke on 15th July 2020
This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Install vRealize Automation 8 using vRLCM

This blog post is part of the Install vRealize Automation 8 using vRLCM series and focuses on the configure of vRealize Lifecycle Manager (vRLCM). vRA8 simplifies the application stack versus vRA7 by doing away with the Windows IaaS components in place of a self contained appliance. While this is true it does add it’s own complexity. vIDM (VMware Identity Manager) is embedded in vRA 7 appliance, which when vRA is clustered automatically clusters vIDM. In…

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Install vRealize Lifecycle Manager (vRLCM)

Published by luke on 14th July 2020
This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Install vRealize Automation 8 using vRLCM

This blog post is part of the Install vRealize Automation 8 using vRLCM series and focuses on the install of vRealize Lifecycle Manager (vRLCM). vRA8 simplifies the application stack versus vRA7 by doing away with the Windows IaaS components in place of a self contained appliance. While this is true it does add it’s own complexity. vIDM (VMware Identity Manager) is embedded in vRA 7 appliance, which when vRA is clustered automatically clusters vIDM. In…

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Software Component Properties in vRA

Published by luke on 2nd July 2020

So you are used to using vRA software component properties. You therefore know how powerful they are for performing Guest OS operations during a build request. They can be seen by the user. which is the issue. That is fine if that’s the intention (such as initial password). It can be pain if you want to expose internal properties to a Guest OS. This post explains how to be able to remove software component properties…

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VM generated password for local admin user

Published by luke on 2nd May 2020

This post explains how to use a vRA Software Component in vRA to implement a generated VM password (local user within Guest OS) and then display it to the user as part of a VM request. Firstly, create a Software Component or edit an existing one. Add a “Computed” property named “LocalAdminPassword” (or whatever name you prefer). Enter the relevant below code (Bash for Linux or PowerShell for Windows) in the “Configure” life cycle action.…

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Using jq in Bash to manage JSON content

Published by luke on 22nd April 2020

No doubt you already use Bash for a wide range of tasks, consequently are already aware it’s purely a procedural scripting language and not object oriented? For the majority of tasks this is fine, however there are times when objects are useful; enter jq, a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor. This post explains how to use jq to convert data into JSON and therefore an object. Say you have a file in /root/ with…

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